Is Mavic Air camera as bad as Mavic Pro?

[3JISolvic]

Is the Mavic Air Camera as much of a Struggle as the Mavic Pro? Lets face it. Even the lowly GoPro that you guys always tend to downplay doesn’t suffer some of the frustrating issues that the Mavic pro camera does. I’m not talking about stills, size, loudness, portability or how many drones DJI must be giving away to have any positive reviews for the Mavic Pro. It’s a great air craft (not camera) that is so close, but so far away. We seem to have all accepted the fact that you literally have to perform intensive surgery on all Mavic Pro footage to get rid of the noise and flickering. The sharpness debate is an absolute joke. You lose no matter which way you go. It’s all just varying degrees of not good enough. Please tell me that the Mavic Air doesn’t suffer from the Noise, Flicker, and Sharpness problems. I understand the limitations of H.264, but the Mavic Pro struggles beyond that excuse. Too all of you getting free DJI products... Congrats and good for you! I don’t need your advice so please go spread your lies in other posts like normal. It’s probably a lost cause but I would like some insight I can trust.

 

[Gotters]

buy something else mate, DJI stuff seems to make you angry, save yourself the stress.

 

[basitmustafa]

Well, I’ve never gotten free product from DJI and I think it’s alright.

When considered in context I think it’s great.

Remember, for $799 you’re essentially getting a camera that is capable of flying itself that also happens to fit in a pocket (ok, a large coat pocket, but still!).

Without careful and thoughtful work, set up of the shot, and conditions it won’t take as good of shots as a DSLR, a point and shoot, or, hell, even a recent iPhone. But again, I refer you to the above statement about “costs less than an iPhone, flies itself!”.

But when wielded by a talented pilot with an understanding of how fixed aperture cameras work, in the right conditions it can produce some great shots.

Like the MP because of the fixed aperture it’s not as versatile.

But I find the camera on the air to be much improved over the MP, but don’t expect great results if you’re not really attentive to conditions and willing to get into the filter game.

 

[Spy_Corfu]

Dito. If you don’t like dji products do us all a big favor and post somewhere else.
Maybe i should remind you that dji also produces the phantom pro and the inspire 2 with pro camera features and performance.
In any case i own the mavic pro and the air now and find that both perform flawlessly in both videos and photos.

 

[3JISolvic]

I'm sure the P4 Pro and Inspire are great and Ive seen proof of this. I'm not so sure that some of this proof hasn't been used claiming its Mavic pro footage. I love the drone, but the camera has consumed so much of my time. There are not really any solutions to the problems, Just millions of videos that either say nothing or have a lut to sell. I just wish I could use it professionally. The noise and flicker make that impossible. If someone could demonstrate that this wasn't such a problem with the Air I would probably buy one. The size of either is such an upside.

 

[JoshuaCarlton]

I have both the air as well as the pro. The Air is a much better image, I haven't had any flickering issues and as long as the light is good the noise is a much finer grain. If I do I have noise, a simple neat video run through and its pretty much gone.

 

[JoshuaCarlton]

I filmed this a about a week ago with the air, far from perfect but I feel like its a step up from the Mavic Pros capabilities

 

[Kilrah]

The noise and flicker make that impossible.

You should tell that to my happy customers...

Anyway, yes it is widely documented that the Air's camera is way better. Look it up, don't need us to do it for you.

 

[kubais]

I totally share your frustration. It´s either watercolor or noise and artifacts, both of which is unfixable to be able to use video professionally. I have spent last many weeks editing hundreds of videos I took last year with MP only to find out I cannot use the footage even after massive denoise.

After analyzing sample footage from MA (from some credible source), sharpness problem seems to be fixed, ie. no watercolor at 0 sharpness.

But I can totally understand that majority of MP users have no problem with video quality. It´s all about one´s quality standards and what is the purpose of the footage. When I was just sharing videos on YTB I wasn´t that much bothered by the noise, rather flickering.

Instead of buying MA I will wait and see what MP2 will bring us (if). MA has considerably lower flight time and reach for my average needs.

 

[Simmo]

Wow.... you must be a huge pro, to spend 'many weeks' editing 'hundreds of videos' taken 'last year' to find out that the Mavic is NOT a pro user camera!

I dunno, If I were a 'pro', I'd be using a different platform..... (and I probably wouldn't be rockin' up to a shoot with an Air either..)

 

[kubais]

To clear things out: Nobody calls himself pro. I would call myself drone enthusiast who made loads of flight footage in nice surroundings and since I am living from photography, some 2 months back I decided (months AFTER shooting all the footage) to try and use slower winter months to edit the footage and offer it on stock platforms. I am just trying to give it a shot, unfortunately noise makes it in most cases unusable.

I am well aware there are better and more suitable platforms ...

 

[AnzacJack]

Is the Mavic Air Camera as much of a Struggle as the Mavic Pro? Lets face it. Even the lowly GoPro that you guys always tend to downplay doesn’t suffer some of the frustrating issues that the Mavic pro camera does. I’m not talking about stills, size, loudness, portability or how many drones DJI must be giving away to have any positive reviews for the Mavic Pro. It’s a great air craft (not camera) that is so close, but so far away. We seem to have all accepted the fact that you literally have to perform intensive surgery on all Mavic Pro footage to get rid of the noise and flickering. The sharpness debate is an absolute joke. You lose no matter which way you go. It’s all just varying degrees of not good enough. Please tell me that the Mavic Air doesn’t suffer from the Noise, Flicker, and Sharpness problems. I understand the limitations of H.264, but the Mavic Pro struggles beyond that excuse. Too all of you getting free DJI products... Congrats and good for you! I don’t need your advice so please go spread your lies in other posts like normal. It’s probably a lost cause but I would like some insight I can trust.

I don’t think to many of us are getting anything free from DJI.
I used gopros for years on drones and I don’t care what you say, the mavic camera performs way better in a drone/flight environment.

 

[thongbong]

Is the Mavic Air Camera as much of a Struggle as the Mavic Pro? Lets face it. Even the lowly GoPro that you guys always tend to downplay doesn’t suffer some of the frustrating issues that the Mavic pro camera does. I’m not talking about stills, size, loudness, portability or how many drones DJI must be giving away to have any positive reviews for the Mavic Pro. It’s a great air craft (not camera) that is so close, but so far away. We seem to have all accepted the fact that you literally have to perform intensive surgery on all Mavic Pro footage to get rid of the noise and flickering. The sharpness debate is an absolute joke. You lose no matter which way you go. It’s all just varying degrees of not good enough. Please tell me that the Mavic Air doesn’t suffer from the Noise, Flicker, and Sharpness problems. I understand the limitations of H.264, but the Mavic Pro struggles beyond that excuse. Too all of you getting free DJI products... Congrats and good for you! I don’t need your advice so please go spread your lies in other posts like normal. It’s probably a lost cause but I would like some insight I can trust.

I agree, but the Air is better quality. The processor is newer. Plenty of people of done reviews on youtube. And I have both the Air and a GP5, they are great during day but suck balls at night. But really though, the Gopro is 400 but the Air is just double that, which is a great deal.

 

[3JISolvic]

In some ways I agree that the Mavic performs better than any GoPro platform. The user interface especially. It’s the noise and flicker that has been the deal breaker for me. If these details have been resolved with the air that’s good news. I’d be willing to give up other image quality attributes to avoid the 8 hour noise removal process that is needed for +1 sharpening on the Mavic Pro.

 

[3JISolvic]

I should clarify. I don’t suspect that a high percentage of this community gets free DJI products, but there are several YouTube channels that tend to successfully steer the opinions of the much larger community. These are not hard to spot. These folks have the product and a video ready to go on Day 1 of the product release. Many of them continue to post videos on a regular basis for months. Sometimes years.

 

[greginfinity]

This guy does a great analysis of what you see in the pro vs air. Like others stated above, it isn't perfect, and everything is a compromise in a drone, but the air seems to hit the widest target for this prosumer-ish category. If you drew a Venn diagram of cost vs size vs range vs battery life vs video quality vs obstacle avoidance features vs user interface you would probably find the Air the most balanced drone in the middle.

 

[SlavicSoul]

Is the Mavic Air Camera as much of a Struggle as the Mavic Pro? Lets face it. Even the lowly GoPro that you guys always tend to downplay doesn’t suffer some of the frustrating issues that the Mavic pro camera does. I’m not talking about stills, size, loudness, portability or how many drones DJI must be giving away to have any positive reviews for the Mavic Pro. It’s a great air craft (not camera) that is so close, but so far away. We seem to have all accepted the fact that you literally have to perform intensive surgery on all Mavic Pro footage to get rid of the noise and flickering. The sharpness debate is an absolute joke. You lose no matter which way you go. It’s all just varying degrees of not good enough. Please tell me that the Mavic Air doesn’t suffer from the Noise, Flicker, and Sharpness problems. I understand the limitations of H.264, but the Mavic Pro struggles beyond that excuse. Too all of you getting free DJI products... Congrats and good for you! I don’t need your advice so please go spread your lies in other posts like normal. It’s probably a lost cause but I would like some insight I can trust.

You are comparing $100 to $200 camera (at best) with fixed lens and aperture to $1500 to $4000 pro-consumer camera body only with detachable lenses. Frankly that is absurd to say the least. No one is beating you over the head to buy any variation of Mavic. Products that can support detachable lens cameras are out there and just as available as Mavic. All you have to do it spend 10 to 15 times more to make it work, and even than unless you have perfectly calm weather, budget, time, and crew or at least 3 that will work with you on daily bases your footage will look even worse than what you can expect form spark.

Most importantly pro-consumer or even professional camera will NOT give you ready to use footage without heavy post production especially if they are mounted on drone and remotely operated. As the matter of fact in order to achieve best results out of any camera you have to film as flat as possible and than recover details and colors in post. Otherwise you will end up with blown highlights, underexposed mid-tones, and noisy darks.

DJI products have their limitations including footage that you can get form them. However if you realistically consider the cost, quality, and ease of use these drones will give you best bang for you buck and it is not even close.

Finally it helps to understand how stuff works before you start making claims.

 

[Mike4884]

Wow.... you must be a huge pro, to spend 'many weeks' editing 'hundreds of videos' taken 'last year' to find out that the Mavic is NOT a pro user camera!

I dunno, If I were a 'pro', I'd be using a different platform..... (and I probably wouldn't be rockin' up to a shoot with an Air either..)

Precisely my thought....u cant expect miracles with a sensor size of the pro and air anyway! Op get the inspire 2 or p4p then

 

[3JISolvic]

I am not quite sure where the detachable lens got into the equation. I am certainly not expecting a $2000 image out of a $1000 drone. Even though Mavic does claim "pro" in it's name. I knew good and well that I wasn't going to run off to the Sahara and join the Nat Geo team or Discovery Channel with a drone at this level. I guess I wasn't clear. The mavic pro has a very noisy image. I shoot in dlog and manual. I have every ND filter in the polar pro catalog which I change out depending on lighting or desired look. A good amount editing is most certainly required on anything I bring home and that is always how it will be in my workflow. Editing is to be expected. I'd compare editing on any camera or platform to taking a dirty lackluster sports car and washing/detailing it.. You will never get good results without that kind of effort. Mavic Pro footage is like bringing home a wounded soldier in critical condition nearly every single time. The footage has to immediately be sent the ICU. (Neat video) The practical purpose of Neat video is to save us from the inevitable bad shot that anyone is going to have occasionally. It's not intended to be required for use on every second of footage. Much like an ICU unit, the patient/footage does not always make it. Im ok with that fact, but I'd prefer not to be subject to this kind of uncertainty 100% of the time. Id almost rather be capped out at 720P than have 4k footage that looks like an acid flashback. "Is that Jerry in the trees maann??" Even my Phantom 3 standard footage doesn't come home in critical condition every time. I guess if so many pilots are ok with living in the ICU then we will just agree to disagree. Thank you to those of you that actually shared some insight and attempted to answer my question. It does seem that there may be hope for the Mavic Air. I just wish the pro 2 was already available. I have several shoots in the next 2 to 8 weeks that could most certainly benefit from a smaller, more compact drone. I guess I'll have to suck it up and use the Phantom 3 and Solo. The solo is another subject for another day, but I hope you all don't believe the negative hype.

 

[kubais]

Precisely my thought....u cant expect miracles with a sensor size of the pro and air anyway! Op get the inspire 2 or p4p then

I am afraid we are facing rather extremely bad implementation than hardware limitations. For example my super cheap action cam (Firefly 8s) shoots much much better video than mavic and have identical sensor size. In normal lighting conditions there is absolutely zero noise in the footage and almost double bitrate after some tweaks, not mentioning 2k/60fps.